In New York, which has a strong leader form of government, it is almost unheard of for legislation to be approved in the Senate without the majority leaderís backing or in the Assembly without the support of the speaker.

(Emphasis added). Now, I suppose the meaning is clear enough -- the state legislature is run by the leaders -- but this conjured up images of downtrodden New Yorkers walking to work under the shadow of massive graven images of George Pataki.